The Constant Gardener

Rob gave a snort of impatience, and a disconcerting writhe of his upper body. "Look. Forget his record. Personally: do you like him, yes or no? Simple as that." And flung himself into a fresh position on his chair.

"My God," said Woodrow over his shoulder, careful this time not to overdo the histrionics, but allowing nonetheless a note of exasperation to enter his voice. "Yesterday it was define love, today it's define like. We do rather chase our absolute definitions in Cool Britannia these days, don't we?"

"We're asking your opinion, sir," said Rob.

Perhaps it was the "sir's" that turned the trick. At their first meeting it was Mr.Woodrow, or when they felt bold, Sandy. Now it was sir, advising Woodrow that these two junior police officers were not his colleagues, not his friends, but lower-class outsiders poking their noses into the exclusive club that had given him standing and protection these seventeen years. He linked his hands behind his back and braced his shoulders, then turned on his heel until he faced his interrogators.

"Arnold Bluhm is persuasive," he declared, lecturing them down the length of the room. "He has looks, charm of a sort. Wit if you like that type of humor. Some sort of aura — perhaps it's that neat little beard. To the impressionable, he's an African folk hero." After which he turned away from them, as if waiting for them to pack and leave.

"And to the unimpressionable?" asked Lesley, taking advantage of his turned back to reconnoiter him with her eyes: the hands nonchalantly comforting one another behind him, the unweighted knee lifted in self-defense.

"Oh, we're in the minority, I'm sure," Woodrow replied silkily.

"Only I imagine it could be very worrying for you — vexing too, in your position of responsibility as Head of Chancery — seeing all this happening under your nose and knowing there's nothing you can do to stop it. I mean you can't go up to Justin, can you, and say, "Look at that bearded black man over there, he's carrying on with your wife," can you? Or can you?"

"If scandal threatens to drag the good name of the Mission into the gutter, I'm entitled — indeed obliged — to interpose myself."

"And did you?" — Lesley speaking.

"In a general way, yes."

"With Justin? Or with Tessa directly?"

"The problem was, obviously, that her relationship with Bluhm had cover, as one might say," Woodrow replied, contriving to ignore the question. "The man's a ranking doctor. He's well regarded in the aid community. Tessa was his devoted volunteer. On the surface, all perfectly aboveboard. One can't just sail in and accuse them of adultery on no evidence. One can only say — "look here, this is giving out the wrong signals, so please be a little more circumspect.""

"So who did you say it to?" Lesley asked while she jotted in a notebook.

"It's not as simple as that. There was more to it than just one episode — one dialogue."

Lesley leaned forward, checking as she did so that the spool was turning in her tape recorder. "Between you and Tessa?"

"Tessa was a brilliantly designed engine with half the cogs missing. Before she lost her baby boy, she was a bit wild. All right." About to make his betrayal of Tessa absolute, Woodrow was remembering Porter Coleridge seated in his study furiously quoting Pellegrin's instructions. "But afterwards — I have to say this — with enormous regret — she struck more than a few of us as pretty much unhinged."

"Was she nympho?" Rob asked.

"I'm afraid that question is a little above my pay grade," Woodrow replied icily.

"Let's just say she flirted outrageously," Lesley suggested. "With everyone."

"If you insist" — no man could have sounded more detached — "it's hard to tell, isn't it? Beautiful girl, belle of the ball, older husband — is she flirting? Or is she just being herself, having a good time? If she wears a low dress and flounces, people say she's fast. If she doesn't, they say she's a bore. That's white Nairobi for you. Perhaps it's anywhere. I can't say I'm an expert."

"Did she flirt with you?" asked Rob, after another infuriating tattoo of the pencil on his teeth.

"I've told you already. It was impossible to tell whether she was flirting or merely indulging her high spirits," said Woodrow, reaching new levels of urbanity.

"So, er, did you by any chance have a bit of a flirt back?" Rob inquired. "Don't look like that, Mr. Woodrow. You're forty-some-thing, menopausal, heading for injury time, same as Justin is. You had the hots for her, why not? I'll bet I would have."

Woodrow's recovery was so quick that it had happened almost before he was aware of it. "Oh my dear chap. Thought of nothing else. Tessa, Tessa, night and day. Obsessed by her. Ask anyone."

"We did," said Rob.

* * *

Next morning, it seemed to the beleaguered Woodrow, his interrogators were indecent in their haste to get at him. Rob set the tape recorder on the table, Lesley opened a large red notebook at a double page marked by an elastic band and led the questioning.